Cubs: We are able to open up the payroll a bit, we’re looking at some old friends for a reunion, tour, and we signed Joc Pederson! Cardinals: LOL, watch this.
Just couldn’t give us a full day …
• I know that hopeful Cubs fans will want to point to Nolan Arenado’s ugly home-road splits as evidence that he’s going to stink when Coors Field is not his home park, but unfortunately, that just hasn’t proved to be true for every big bat that changes teams from the Rockies. Of course Coors Field helps improve offensive performance because of the elevation’s impact on ball travel (off the bat, and out of the pitcher’s hand). There’s no disputing that. But what’s been long in dispute is how that altitude impacts the human players, who have to constantly adjust in and out of Coors Field (the so-called “Coors Hangover Effect”). That is to say, sometimes, the “road” portion of the splits are artificially
t’s an unenviable spot for Hoyer or any executive to have to talk around a trade of this nature, but Wednesday morning’s press conference still felt more disconnected than it needed to be.
Lukewarm Stove: Thoughts on a Cubs Rebuild, Contreras True Availability, Springer Race Down to Two, Bauer s Ask, More
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Lukewarm Stove: Thoughts on a Cubs “Rebuild,” Contreras’ True Availability, Springer Race Down to Two, Bauer’s Ask, More
Last night, in a frustrated stupor, I accidentally phrased the title of our post on the official announcement of the Darvish trade as “… Cubs Trade Darvish and Caratini to San Diego for Davies, a Package of Prospects, and Cash,” when in reality the Cubs are the ones sending cash to the Padres. I wrote the post correctly (as though the Cubs were sending cash), but there was clearly some subconscious disconnect between what I thinking and what really went down.
Anyone else pick up on the very quick pushback against Jed Hoyer’s pushback on those Willson Contreras rumors? Like, lots of reporting that very quickly sought to make sure people weren’t thinking Contreras DEFINITELY wasn’t EVER getting traded? Usually, that means it’s a message someone wants to get out, and it was a signal to me that I should probably say something here.
I started the discussion here, and then Michael tracked a lot of it here in the Stove. Then there was even more of it in Patrick Mooney’s latest last night (from which we discussed the Jason Castro rumor), and it feels like the right take (which is also what I said after his comments): what Hoyer was pushing back against is the idea that the Cubs are out there working on a specific Contreras deal or deals, and something is about to happen.